The Path of the Spirit
by PeaceKeeper
Summary: The power of wishes and the responsibility of fulfillment. Liam's dreams become real when the Digimon from his dreams is brought to him by the Guardians.... (Chapter 5 uploaded)
1. Prologue

The Path of the Spirit  
  
A Digimon FanFic by Peacekeeper Alpha/Fabian  
  
1 Disclaimer and Introduction:  
  
I own nothing. I do not own Digimon. I do not hold the copyrights on any songs, works of art or literature (except for the few bits of poetry I have had published). I don't own any major corporations named in this piece. Technically, I do not even own the computer I have written most of the early chapters of this piece on.  
  
This is a work of fiction, and a tribute to an anime that I dearly love. It should not be taken as an attempt to claim the characters or other intellectual property of Fox Entertainment, Saban, or any other major companies who have lawyers' eagerly awaiting copyright infringement lawsuits. Besides, it'd be easier to get Clinton to give up his intern obsession than to get money from a poor student.  
  
Yes, fan fiction. This means that some things may not coincide exactly with the story line set forth by Digimon. Reference the 02 season. There are also two Original Characters, which you'll meet later.  
  
This fic, for my own edification, has been divided into three parts. Each part spans a different section of time, with this section going from about a week before the battle with Kimeramon until about three days before it. That's all you need to know at this point; I trust you all can figure out where the other two sections will fit after I post them. There are gaps, just because I don't feel like rewriting those sections of the Digimon storyline.  
  
Now that's out of the way; read, review, and enjoy. Don't sue.  
  
2  
  
3 Prologue  
  
Ancient Legends speak of other worlds outside the realm of Earth. These worlds work their way back and forth between the infinite and finite like a fine silver thread, bringing both together. It is between these two seemingly opposite existences that Earth finds herself, stitched in the cosmic fabric.  
  
Long ago, nine children were called from their own world to help defend another world, far removed from their home. Eight returned from that journey, believing that their work was complete and that their penance paid. Destiny often doesn't follow human emotions, though.  
  
Legend has it that sometimes, when the soul is pure enough, and the desire is great enough, it is said that the individual can transcend his or her own world and move to another world. When this happens, a new path between the worlds is created, and a new guardian is born to protect the path. 


	2. Beginnings

PK:  Here it is:  The beginning of my epic.  This will be released, and then when I feel more confident in my free time and ability, I will strip it down and rebuild it.  "We have the technology.  We can rebuild it; make it faster, better, smarter..."

Anyway, as always, Read and Review, don't sue.****

**Chapter One-Beginnings**

His stride was decisive as he walked down the hallway towards his ultimate goal; escape.

"What a little prick."

"I hear his mom went crazy years ago.  That's why he doesn't have any friends."

"Naah.  I hear they killed his father and buried him under the house."

The words swarmed around him but he tried not to listen to the cruel words that were spoken about him.  Loud enough to make it clear they wanted him to hear, soft enough that he wasn't supposed to comment.

Their juvenile torture had lasted years.  Liam's life had been surrounded by the cruel words of those who couldn't understand why he never did anything after school.  Why he never seemed to _live_.  And they hated him because despite the fact he was ordinary and reserved, he was also smart and acted superior to the rest of the world around him.  

They hated him because they knew they couldn't touch him.

"Hey, faggot."

Liam didn't bother looking at the blond boy that he knew was standing around the next corner.  Justin, like most of the kids in the school, took every opportunity to try to shove Liam back into the niche that freshmen loners were supposed to have in high school; non-existence.  

It didn't matter that Liam was smarter than any of them and knew it.  Actually, it did matter; he knew he was smarter than them, and knew that intimidated them.  It was his only power in the fragile power structure of his life.

As Liam maintained his stride towards the main corridor of the school where the exits were, he knew Justin was preparing another stunt.  It didn't matter, he knew Justin would fuck up like in everything else he ever tried.

"I'm talking to you, queer.  Or are you off to jerk off at your computers?"

_Don't speak.  He isn't worth your breath.  Just keep walking_.

Finally, as he was about to pass the corner where Justin was leaning against it happened.  Justin's foot jerked out swiftly into Liam's pathway, intended to trip the boy.  Instead, Liam merely jumped over it with a simple gracefulness and landed on the other side with no difficulty.

"C'mon Justin.  Don't waste my time."

Everything was an act.  Everything he did in school was just that.  He acted dumber to avoid conflicts.  He acted slower and more clumsy to avoid envy that would cause fights.  And now, he was acting cocky to try to escape the inevitable rehearsal of the same game Liam and Justin had been playing every weekday afternoon that school year.

He no longer had to think.  Justin always lead with a right fist directed at Liam's chin on a Wednesday.  It was a bizarre habit Justin had in fighting; the day of the week decided his style.  Liam, as always, would lean slightly to his right to offset Justin's punch then use his own left arm to throw the larger boy off balance and into the opposite wall.  When he felt adventurous, or Justin had just pissed him off that badly, he would knee the boy as he tumbled.

As always, Justin threw the first punch.  As always, Liam made a few simple and quick motions and Justin fell a moment later to the opposite side of the hallway, panting for breath.

Liam resettled his satchel as he continued down the hallway.  "I don't have time for an ignorant piss-ant like you, Justin."

And as everyone resumed their vague insults about Liam and his life, he continued to wonder why he was trapped.  Why he had no life or friends, and why he had to act cocky for any shred of respect.

• • • • •

_I shall destroy all you meddling kids…and your stupid Veemon too!_

"DAMNIT!  Why does everything I write come out like Scooby Doo or _The Wizard of Oz_?"

He glared at the computer screen, fists curled up tight.  The fanfic had been taking far too long, and he was fed up with the problems of getting the voices right.  

"I just don't get it…" he said as he deleted half of the dialogue just written.

Liam had been trying to write this fic for weeks now, and it just wasn't coming together.  The exhaustion from the juvenile antics of school and his part time job combined to just screw up his work.  And now he was beginning to wonder what it was all for.

Basically, that was all there was in Liam's life; the hellish routine of school, his work, his mom, and his unending obsession with Digimon.  Lately, though, that obsession had been causing some odd dreams, which he tried to resolve through his fiction.  That slight hobby of his was the only time in his life when Liam could stop acting and become his own person.  In his creative works.

"I need a break…" he sighed as he punched a few keys on the keyboard.  An image of Gatomon appeared on the screen.

"Gatomon…" he murmured in an almost disturbingly loving way.  "But Gatomon is Kari's digimon, she isn't mine.  She isn't the one…"

Sighing softly, Liam opened a file consisting of hundreds of thousands of segments of binary code and odd symbols.  After staring for a minute at the odd scripts in front of him, Liam began to play around with the code.

"If I change her coloring…yeah, more silver in her fur…and those gloves…replace yellow with gold and red with silver…the tail ring.  Hmmm…no, that's a one-of-a-kind artifact.  This one can't have it.  Let's replace it with a medallion on her forehead…"  After a few minutes, the labor of love was completed and Liam stared at the feline digimon on his screen. 

"Perfect!  That's her…" Liam's thoughts casually drifted back to the dreams, and to the strange digimon that had been appearing in them.  Staring at the screen, the digimon who had befriended him in his dream stared back at him.  "That's her…"

Shaking himself from his daydream, Liam remembered something.  "What to save her as?" he wondered, pondering the same question he kept running through each time he thought of the digimon.  In all of his dreams of the digital world, he had never learned the feline's name.

"Hmmm…Golden Gatomon?  No.  Too tacky.  Catmon?  No, too American.  Wait…what's the word in Japanese for meow?  That's right!  Nyar….She'll be Nyamon!"

He had created digimon on his computer before, but this time was special.  This time, he was had finally recreated the Digimon that had been visiting his dreams over the past few months.  He quickly saved her and opened up her matrix in the Digimon Viewer.  Her 3d image rotated on screen, a stylized version of Gatomon.  And the Spirit Medallion on her crest was a definite step away from Gatomon's tail ring.

"At least Nyamon won't lose her special artifact so easily!"  Liam beamed.  Printing out a copy of the new digimon and the associated crest, he set it on top of a pile of printouts on other digimon-Agumon, Gabumon, Patamon, Veemon, Hawkmon, etc.  

After admiring her picture for a moment, he looked at the Viewer program and called up Nyamon's attributes.  For a few minutes, he paged through the attributes looking at her abilities as the computer tried to render her data from the modified code.

He looked down at the paper on his desk with loving eyes.  "Nyamon…" Silently, he dreamed of fighting alongside the other Digidestined in the Digital World.  Suddenly, a twinge of pain flicked through his eyes.  "But you're just like the others; just computer data on my hard drive.  The Digital World is just a dream, and I'll never see it even if it is real."  

A tear fell from his eye and hit the paper, and he knocked the stack of papers off his desk, angry with himself for indulging in such a fantasy combined with a feeling of weakness driven into him by the kids at school.  While most of the dislocated papers scattered around the room, Nyamon's paper and a schematic of a new digivice landed back on his desk, seeming to stare back at him.

As he lay down on his desk, he wept and at the same time chided himself for his sadness.  "This is stupid.  I'm 15, and I'm crying over creatures imagined by a cartoonist in Japan.  What a loser."  As his sobbing slowed, he sat up and wiped the tears from his eyes.

He looked up and considered working on the fic again.  Just as he began to work, though, he noticed his monitor begin to flicker and the lights in his room dim.

"Damn Penn Power," he muttered as he saved his work before his computer lost power.  "Another bunch of brownouts.  Jerks."

As the lights faded, he turned around and grabbed the flashlight off of the charger behind him.  When he turned back to his desk, he noticed a pale blue light on his desk glowing in spite of the power outage.  He turned his flashlight on and directed it to where the light was flickering and gasped.  

A small silver object sat on top of a slightly moist piece of paper.  "This looks just like that digivice I was designing.  But…but that's impossible!"

Gently, he touched the small device and picked it up.  "It's real…but it can't be a real digivice!"

After staring blankly at the watch-like device for a few minutes, Liam put it on his wrist and closed the latch.  Still unwilling to believe the device on his arm, he pressed a button and a small message appeared on the screen.

"OPENING DIGIPORT."

"Opening digiport?  What is this thing talking about?  There's no such thing and there's no power and…"

Before he could finish his correcting the small device on his wrist, his monitor came back to life, emitting a bright white light.  Liam was blinded by the light from his monitor as it shone around his room, turning his existence into a box of pure white light.  He shielded his eyes with his arm and suddenly felt his body being pulled apart and drawn into the computer.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" he screamed.  And then everything turned black.


	3. Awakening

Peacekeeper:  Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it? 

Liam:  I feel like I've been thrown through a dryer, then left to sit in a dark box for three months.

Peacekeeper:  Ohh…yeah…I forgot to pay the electricity bill on the Muse Box.

Liam:  Great.

Peacekeeper:  Anyway, I'm back after a 3 month sabbatical from fanfiction.  Expect more good stuff from me in the next few months.  And the rest of _Path of the Spirit._

Liam:  Hey, what's that supposed to mean?!?

Peacekeeper:  Yeah.  Read, review, and don't sue.  I don't own Digimon.  Nor ff.net.  Nor Liam…no, wait…I do own Liam…

Liam sweatdrops…

Chapter Two—Awakening 

As Liam gradually woke up, two thoughts occurred to him: first, the world was spinning; and second, he wasn't in Pennsylvania anymore.  And his surroundings sure didn't look like any postcards he had seen of Kansas.

With the world still spinning around him, Liam resisted the urge to throw up as he rubbed his head.  Once the urge to hurl abated, he sat bolt upright realizing his situation. "Where the hell am I?"

Glancing around the small grove where he now sat, Liam began to realize that his situation was a bit more unusual than simply passing out at the computer.  He glanced down at the strange device that had appeared on his desk as it began to blink and chirp.

"What the hell is this thing?  Did it really bring me here?  WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"

While the device on his wrist refused to give him any answers, a small display popped up that looked like a crossbreed between a digital compass and a radar screen.  On it, a small arrow pointed forward, and a small blue dot appeared in the center of the screen.  "Is that supposed to be me?"

Trying to make sense of the display, he suddenly realized that the new watch and the odd setting wasn't the only change in his life; his clothes were completely different.  Liam stared in shock at his clothing.  _Holy shit…someone swapped my clothes on me._

His normal t-shirt and jeans combination had been replaced by a simple black jacket with a light colored Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants.  His sneakers were also replaced by more utilitarian leather hiking boots.  On a hunch, Liam took off his glasses to examine them.  His normal aviator glasses somehow had become a trendy square-wire job.

"What the hell is up with these clothes?  And my glasses?" the bewildered teen puzzled with a mix of anger and confusion.

A chirp from the watch elicited Liam's attention, suddenly becoming irritated with the new fashion accessory from hell as he frantically tried to turn off the chirping.  As he fiddled with the digivice, Liam noticed a new golden dot blinking on the screen and the arrow on the screen apparently trying to direct him towards the new dot.

_What the hell… Liam growled, as he dusted himself off and studied the digivice. He sighed softly and shrugged, deciding to follow the digivice instructions.  __What do I have to lose?  Maybe it'll be a way to get back home.  Mom's going to be pissed if I miss dinner._

After following the small screen in front of him for a few minutes, Liam became aware of something unsettling.  Before, there had only been the one golden blip, but as he walked several blue blips appeared on the screen beyond the golden one, and they seemed to be coming towards him.  Shuddering slightly in fear, he decided to pick up his pace towards the dot.

Quickly, he found himself standing over what had attracted the watch.  Looking down, he saw a golden object on the ground.  It was small, and looked like a union between an egg and a cylinder, with flattened sides lengthwise and an odd silver emblem on a top facet.  The emblem is what drew Liam's attention, as he gradually recognized the design.

"The Crest of Spirit…" he whispered in shock as he absent-mindedly touched the object.  A blast of golden energy knocked him backwards and left him lying on the ground and staring at the sky, regretting his decision to touch the item.

"OK, can anything else go wrong today?" he pondered aloud. Just then, he noticed the odd object hovering above his chest.

"No, this just can't be…" he choked out, as the object settled on his chest.  "This thing is behaving just like…but…but…but" he stuttered, touching the object and trying to think back to what he knew about Digimon.

"If this is a digimental, then that means I'm in the Digital World," he surmised as he slowly stood up and dusted himself off.  He shook his head and tried to force himself to think rationally, despite the fact the rest of the world didn't appear to be behaving rationally.

Suddenly, the watch chirped again, and Liam remembered the other blips he had noticed earlier.  They were much closer, and so he decided it would be in his best interest not to find out what they were.

Rushing back through the underbrush, he stopped a few hundred meters away to catch his breath and analyze his situation.  

"This is unreal," he panted as he examined the golden object.  

"This looks like a digimental, and this place looks like the Digital World.  If this is a digimental and this is the Digital World, then this is a digivice," he reasoned, examining the new fashion accessory on his hand.  Everything had pointed back towards the object being a digivice, despite Liam's stubborn refusal to believe the simplest explanation.  It bore striking resemblance to the schematic of the digivice he had been designing back at home; yet there was no explanation for how it had appeared.

"This is ridiculous.  It makes rational sense, except the Digital World isn't real!  It's the fantasy of some cartoonist in Japan, who created a children's show.  The Digital World is fictional, so it's illogical that I'm in the Digital World."  He tried to believe what he was reasoning, but glancing around at his surroundings, Liam was at a loss to figure out how else to explain everything that had happened to him in the last twenty minutes outside of dreaming.  And it was just too real to be a dream.

He was about to give up to make sense of anything around him as anything other than a delusion when a voice called out behind him.

"Hey, who are you?"

_Oh shit Liam thought as rationality suddenly abandoned him, and he turned around to find out who—or what—was behind him._

• • • • •

Somewhere in the infinite diversity and conundrum that humans call the universe, a female phantom sighed.

_It's beginning, she thought as she turned away from her viewing of the Digital World.  An ephemeral tear traced its way down her cheek as she walked away. _

_Liam, I hope you're ready for this.  I'm sorry _I couldn't save you from this fate…__


	4. Destiny Calling

Peacekeeper:  Hmm…well, it's…uhh…done.  I guess. 

Liam:  I'm cool!  You wrote me as cool!

Peacekeeper, sighing:  No, I wrote you as _acting_ cool.  Something that I fear may become one of my greater mistakes.

Liam:  Hey!  I'm cool!

Peacekeeper:  You spend your days staring at a computer screen.  The only reason you don't get your ass kicked at school is because the only person who hates you enough to fight you is also dumber than a brick wall.  You are not cool.

Liam:  That's mean.

Peacekeeper:  Anyway, R&R.  Don't sue.  I don't own anything.  Not even the creepy Osamu muse that is responsible for _Relapse_.

Liam:  You're mean.

Peacekeeper:  And you're a dolt.

Chapter Three—Destiny Calling 

Against his better survival instincts, Liam fainted at the sudden voice behind him. Once he woke up, he began cursing himself.  _Yeah, what a wonderful day.  You've never fainted in your life, and now you've fainted twice in the same day._

Looking up at the faces above him, he resisted the urge to faint again.  Instead, he curled up into a tight sitting position and closed his eyes as tight as possible.

_Must remain…calm.  Must not scream…must remain calm,_ Liam began to chant silently.  _This is just a dream.  Dreams can't hurt me.  Must remain calm.  This is the most real dream I've ever had.  Must remain calm.  Can't look like a dork._

Yet, when he opened his eyes, the people still standing before him shocked the calm out of Liam.

"No!  This isn't possible!  _You aren't possible!" screamed Liam, confronted with another contradiction to his already shaken rationality.  _

The brown-haired boy in the peculiar jacket and khaki shorts turned to his friends.  "What's he talking about?  I know I'm great, but I'm not _impossible_…"

A cute brown-haired girl with amazing reddish-brown eyes giggled at him.  "Oh, Davis, he's right.  You are impossible."

Her blond friend laughed with the girl.  "That's Davis all right—modest as ever."

Liam took a deep breath and released his legs, while trying to regain his composure with the reality building around him.  _OK, if this is real, I must be…well, let's skip over where I am.  Let's just not seem like an idiot, ok Liam?  Deal?  Deal_.

"OK, you really are…" He stopped, trying to figure out how to phrase what logic told him could not be.  "The Digidestined?  Davis, Yolei, Cody, Kari, TK?" he asked, amazed at the question even forming.

All of the mirth in the group around him evaporated instantly.  "How do you know us?" asked the short boy with his brown hair cut in a bowl shape, eyeing Liam with suspicion.

The blond boy and the brunette girl quit laughing and stared down at Liam.  The blond asked, "Yeah, who are you, and how do you know our names?"

They are real!  I'm really in the Digital World?   OK, must act…normal. 

Liam shook his head in anger and puzzlement as he slipped back into his well-rehearsed personality.  "One minute, I'm writing a story about the Digidestined, the next moment I'm sitting with them in the Digital World.  This can't be happening.  This definitely doesn't make sense."

The girl with the wine-colored hair adjusted her glasses, eyeing Liam with suspicion.  "You're telling _us it doesn't make sense?  Just how do you know who we are?"_

"Ok man, you know us, but who are you?  And where did you come from?" asked the first boy who his friends had called Davis.

"This is going to sound really weird, and imagine what it sounds like for me to be saying it.  Where I come from, there's a TV show about you all, and your adventures in the Digital World, err…here."  Liam shook his head again, and pulled out the digimental, staring blankly at it and turning to the taller brunette boy.  "If they're right, that means you're Davis and you are partnered to Veemon."

Turning to the suspicious girl and her much shorter friend, Liam continued, "You must be Yolei, and you are the new bearer of love and sincerity, and your digimon is Hawkmon.  Cody, you carry Knowledge and Reliability, and yours is Armadillomon." 

Turning to the last two, the blond boy and brunette girl, Liam finished, "TK, Hope, Patamon.  And Kari…" Liam paused, trying to maintain his careful act that what he was saying _wasn't_ impossible.  "Light and Gatomon.  Am I wrong on any of these?"

This time, the others jaws dropped as they heard Liam's identification of all of them.  After a few moments, TK broke the shocked silence.  "No, you're absolutely correct.  I don't suppose you know who my brother is."

Liam sighed, still disbelieving the conversation he was having.  "Yes, your older half-brother is Yamato, or Matt, and he's digidestined as well.  His digimon is Gabumon.  And Kari, your older brother is Tai, and his digimon is Agumon"

They looked at each other in shock.  Somehow, the newcomer knew everything about them, yet they had never seen him before.

"How do we know you aren't working with the Digimon Emperor?" Yolei asked, stomping her foot down.

_Digimon Emperor?  "Ken?  I can't prove to you that I'm not with him, unless you want to call him up and ask.  Besides…" Liam stopped himself, weighing how much to say from what he knew from the television show.  He was already shocked at how much he knew and how accurate his knowledge had been, yet there was still a lingering fear he couldn't yet identify…_

The Digidestined exchanged looks of shock with one and other.  He knew the name of the Digimon Emperor, which the rest of them had only learned a few days earlier.  "OK, so you know all about us, so how did you end up in the digital world?" TK asked, with curiosity and a faint bite of hostility.

Liam scratched his head.  He was both nervous about the hostility of the group and shaken by the strangeness of the day.  More than anything, he wanted to earn some trust from the group to try to smooth over his bumpy day.  But the only way to do that was to keep up his act that this was all relatively normal.

"Well, Izzy might have a theory or two."  His comment elicited a slight laughter from the group despite the chilling fact that Liam inexplicably knew everything about them, including their friends.

"Hey man, what're those?  I've never seen a digiegg like that, or a watch like that one!  Do you get Donkey Madness on that thing?" Davis said, noticing Liam's Digimental and digivice for the first time.

TK looked at Kari and sighed.  "Why does he always want to know if the latest version of the Digivice gets Donkey Madness?"

Liam looked down at the odd digivice.  "Well, the digimental appears to be the Digimental of Spirit, if the crest information on my computer is accurate.  As for this watch, I think it's a digivice that I was designing on my computer, before I found out that the Digital World is real.  I had named my version of the Digivice the DV-X, Digivice Mark Ten."

"You designed your own digivice?"  Cody's question had a slight bite to it, and Liam remembered that Ken's digivice had been the first of its kind, too.  Still, something in the youngest boy's face made Liam feel slightly more comfortable with his question.

"I don't really remember anymore.  I guess it just came to me in one of these weird dreams I've been having.  Even those dreams don't compare with how weird today has been, though," Liam answered, shaking his head slightly in disbelief.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him.  "Why were you guys in here today, anyway?  Trying to take care of Ken?"

"Why should it matter to you?  You can't prove that you're not one of Ken's toys, and you want us to trust you?"  Yolei's rage and suspicion at Liam startled him. 

"Well, let's put it another way.  I'm from America.  I like you guys, and have dreamt about coming to the Digital World and…" his voice drifted off as he stopped the thought, and revised it.  "I've dreamt about coming to the Digital World with you guys since I first saw the TV show."

_Now I'm beginning to wonder if that wish was so smart, Liam added to himself._

A soft giggling caught Liam's attention, and a small brown furry creature flew out from behind TK.  The creature's voice was soft and lilting, and trusting.  "So, you're here to help us fight Ken?"

Liam chuckled at Patamon's question.  "I guess…the problem is I haven't found my digimon partner yet.  That is, if I'm even supposed to have one…I'm not too sure of anything right now."

Davis, ever the optimist, tried to cheer up Liam. "Don't worry man.  We'll help you!  We're here to save the world and help people, and maybe you're here to help us!"

For a moment, Yolei seemed to be ready to object, then she just shrugged her shoulders in resignation.

Liam ignored Yolei's silent objection and laughed hesitantly, getting to his feet.  Considering the way the day had progressed, he was beginning to think sitting down and twiddling his thumbs would be a safer course of action.  Looking around at the faces that surrounded him, though, he felt surer of himself.  "Well, then let's get moving.  If I'm going to be here for a while, I want to at least find my partner, and maybe figure out a way to get home before dark."

With that, they got moving on the trail, five pairs of Digidestined and the newcomer to the Digital World.

• • • • •

"Hmmm, what is this?  A new human in the Digital World?  Honestly, when did it become so easy for people to get in?  The barrier must be lowering its standards."

The Digimon Emperor scowled at the display in front of him.  "Who dressed him, anyway?  A colorblind Drimogenmon?  Hmmmph.  Oh well, no matter.  Just one more Digidestined to destroy."

Suddenly, something on the newcomer caught the Emperor's attention.  "What's that…a digivice?  But I've never seen anything like that one before…"

The Emperor's tone grew more vicious as he glared through the purple glasses at the object on the newcomer's wrist.  "I hate it when people upstage me."

Suddenly angered, the Emperor stalked off in his base to find Wormmon so he could properly unleash his frustration by practicing soccer kicks on the rookie virus digimon.


	5. The Meeting

Peacekeeper:  OK, it's here, the fourth (or fifth, depending on how you look at it) chapter of _Path of the Spirit._

Liam:  When do I develop personality?

Peacekeeper:  You have no personality.  That's the point.

Liam:  Hey!

Peacekeeper:  OK, not to give away too many spoilers, but we meet a new Digimon in this chapter.  And because Yolei has a male Digimon, I waived the rule of same-gender-Digidestined-Digimon partnering.

Liam:  I get a Digimon?!?

Peacekeeper:  *sighs*  I think she's too good for you, Liam…  Anyway, Read and Review, please don't sue.  And I _DO mean review – if you like it, show you like it and review.  If you don't like it, well…I promise the upcoming chapters will get better.  Until the next Box, R&R, don't sue!_

Chapter Four—The Meeting 

As they walked through the woods, Liam and Gatomon spent the time talking.  The bewildered teenager had given up trying to understand the day, and was just trying to get through it without any more headaches.

"Do they ever tell you what a pretty kitty you are?" Liam asked, in a slightly teasing manner.

"Hmmph." Gatomon replied, feigning insult at the comment, but nevertheless grinned.

Liam kept thinking about the situation with a mixture of disbelief and youthful glee.  _I can't believe I'm walking through the Digital World talking to Gatomon.   And the rest—they're real!  They're actually real!_

For a while, the group had just wandered around seemingly aimlessly.  Apparently, the others had been on a picnic in the Digital World when their D-3's detected Liam's signal.  Just moments before Liam's arrival a Digimental had appeared on their digivices as well, as if one incident had spawned the next.  When all this happened, they went to investigate, and they found Liam talking to himself and trying desperately to rationalize the irrational.

They had been polite enough not to laugh.

After a while, a new signal appeared on the digivices.  As they made their way through the Digital forest, Liam continued his attempt to come to terms with the Digital World.

"OK Liam, you'd better hang back a bit when we get there.  You don't have a digimon partner, and it could get ugly," TK cautioned Liam as they approached the mysterious signal.

"Thanks TK.  Way to rub salt in the wound," Liam replied, acting indignant but silently appreciating TK's concern.

Davis seized the opportunity to tease TK and jumped in, "Yeah TD.  Way to be sensitive to Liam on his first time in the Digital World."

Kari and TK glanced at each other and rolled their eyes.  Liam grinned.  _Just like I remember...  Will __Davis__ ever get TK's name right?_

Finally, the group came to a large clearing, where the reading on the digivices was the strongest.  An odd blue light was engulfing the clearing, and in the middle of it a stone sat.  Everyone gasped in awe of the odd stone with a golden band around it.

"What is that thing?" Yolei asked, intrigued.

"I think…it's a Destiny Stone."

No one was quite sure what a Destiny Stone was, as they had never seen one before.  Even Liam found himself perplexed by how he instinctively _knew what it was in front of them.  _

He stood silent and stared in amazement for a moment while the others watched.  Checking for a moment on his digivice to see if it knew anything about the stone, Liam walked into the clearing and touched the Destiny Stone.  Instantly, a blue wave of energy shot out in all directions, and Liam found himself on his back again.

_Just great, he thought as he once again stared up at the sky.  __When am I going to learn not to touch odd objects in this place?  OK…from now on, I don't touch foreign objects in the Digital World.  And everything's foreign._

Everyone ran to Liam's side as he got up and dusted himself off, staring at the column of blue light stretching from around the stone into the sky.  Once they all realized that he was uninjured, they looked up at the pillar of light that was beginning to cut away at the clouds.

"Uhhh…guys?  This doesn't look good." Davis announced to no one's shock.  Everyone nodded in silent trepidation, wondering what would happen.  

"Great.  What did I cause this time?" Liam asked, cursing his decision to wake up that particular morning.

Almost on cue, the answer came.  A giant dragon in chains began threading himself down through the hole in the clouds caused by the pillar of light, and up through another hole.  After a few moments, his face came down and hovered just above the Destiny Stone.

**~You have found your way, young Destined one.**

"Umm…are you talking to me?" Liam timidly replied.

**~To whom else would I be speaking to?**

"The others.  They're the Digidestined."

**~They know their Destiny.  You have only begun to realize yours.**

Hearing the blue dragon's words, Liam's dreams swelled around him again and he could hear her voice.  

"Your destiny is just beginning…" 

The day hadn't been going very well for Liam.  He'd been sucked through his computer, been hit by various blasts of energy, fainted twice, been having uncontrollable daydreams, and was in a generally bad mood.  Now, the Guardian was trying his nerves and the memories of the dreams were really getting to him.  

He cocked his head arrogantly and glared at the Guardian, momentarily forgetting the sheer size difference between the two and let him slip into another of his familiar acts – the arrogant prick.  "Does my Destiny include a 401-K package and perhaps medical benefits?"

Showing remarkable patience, the Guardian didn't vaporize Liam where he stood.  Instead, he lowered his head and waved his body a little more and tried to remain calm with the irate teenager.

~Don't try to trivialize this.  Your heart has been found worthy.  You have been brought here to help the Digidestined protect the Digital World.

Liam's manners had suffered with the rest of him, and he continued his tirade against the forces-that-be of the Digital World. "Why?  It's not like they don't have a good grasp on it.  They've got a good track record, and these new ones seem to have a grasp on the situation with the Digimon Emperor.  They seem to be doing just fine – why would they need my help?"

"How does he know all that stuff about us and the other Digidestined?" Davis whispered to Yolei.

"Haven't we already been over this?  I don't know, you don't know, he doesn't seem to know…  We just don't know.  So shut up and listen," Yolei snorted, watching the magnificent digimon and the less-than-magnificent human square off.

~They are strong, but they will need more help in their upcoming battle.  Your soul has strength and a gift that the others will need.  They will need your help in this battle.  You know as well as anyone that you cannot walk away from your own destiny.

Nyamon's voice continued to ring in his ears as the Guardian spoke.  _"You can't escape it, Liam.  You have to accept your destiny…"_

Shaking his head to both voices, Liam glared at the Guardian.  "Would you care to bet on that?" Liam asked as he turned around and started to leave the grove.  "This is me walking away from my destiny."

A few steps later, a blinding flash of light surrounded Liam and he found himself standing where he was a few moments ago, blinking and staring back at the giant digimon.

"I told you.  You can't escape your destiny…" 

"Well, it was worth a try," he sighed in resignation and slumped his shoulders.

**~You know too well the danger they face.  We have sensed your dreams and we know that you can help the Digidestined.**

While the others glanced around to each other, trying to grasp what Azulongmon was saying, Liam merely sighed and slackened his shoulders.  _The dreams…they're real? The images in his dreams had been frightening at times, and Liam didn't want to have to face them in reality._

"I don't see how I can help them.  I don't even have a digimon partner!" he shouted to the Guardian, frustrated at what was being thrust upon him.

"We will meet again soon in the Digital World…" 

~I shall remedy that.  Gatomon, please step forward.

Silently, Gatomon nodded and obeyed the will of the Guardian, stepping forward to join Liam in front of the Destiny Stone. 

~We know your soul, Liam.  We know that you dream of fighting beside Gatomon.  But she is not your digimon.  She is bound to the Child of Light.  You must have a digimon to carry the share of your burden, the burden of Spirit.  Therefore, we will create a new digimon in Gatomon's image – we get a discount at Kinko's.

At his words, a beam of light raced down from the clouds around the Guardian and struck Gatomon, knocking her to her paws on the ground.  Kari cried out and rushed towards Gatomon, but was stalled by the being above her.

~Fear not, Child of Light.  Gatomon will be fine.  We are merely borrowing some of her energy and data for a moment to create a new partner.

With that, another beam of light lashed down from the skies and struck the ground on the other side of Liam.  Inside the light, a shadowy form began to emerge.  At first, it looked similar to Gatomon, but as she took shape, the creature's fur changed color and an object could be seen on her forehead.  As suddenly as the lights had appeared, they both disappeared when the duplicate was completed.

~Behold your partner, Liam.  We borrowed your own designs for her, and we know she belongs with you.  You and she shall fight beside each other from now on.

Liam stared in disbelief at the new digimon.  She was exactly like he had pictured her on his computer—her fur was a silvery white, with a golden spiral on her tail.  Her ears and tail also had golden tuffs of hair at their ends.  Her gloves were golden and silver, with silver claws at the end.  And on her forehead sat the golden medallion with the silver emblem of the Crest of Spirit.

Liam stood stunned, watching the Digimon from his dreams take shape before him.  He turned back towards the Guardians, all of his raging emotions mixing on his face.

~One final thing before I leave you, Liam.  You will have many battles to fight here, to protect the Digital World.  Some of them, you may already know.  The most important ones are still to come, though.  You have been given a golden digimental to assist you and your new digimon, but you will require one other item.  Here, receive it now.

With those words, another beam of light shot down from the clouds to Liam's hands.  When he opened his hands, he found they contained a crest within a tag.

Quietly, Liam stared in amazement at what had been given to him.  His eyes looked from the beautiful cat-creature beside him to the tag and crest in his hands.  As he stared at the fruition of all of his dreams of the Digital World, all of his anger and sarcasm melted away and was replaced with a quiet gratitude.

Wiping a tear from his cheek, Liam bowed his head in respect to the Guardian.  "Thank you, Azulongmon.  You will never know how much this means to me."

~There you are wrong, child.  We already know how much this means to you, which is why we chose you.  Use these gifts in wisdom and love.  We shall meet again soon.  

~Children, trust in your new companion.  He and his digimon shall serve you well with his knowledge and her spirit and wisdom.  Until we meet again.

Azulongmon turned upwards and flew back into the clouds, and the clearing restored to normal.  Everyone was a little stunned by the meeting, and gradually became aware of the new digimon standing among them.  Gatomon was the first to walk over to the newly created digimon.

"I'm Gatomon," Gatomon said warmly, extending her paw to the new digimon.  "You're a pretty digimon."

"Thank you.  You're cute, too," the digimon replied, and both digimon softly giggled.

"Umm, you guys do realize you look almost identical, right?" Davis asked, not quite understanding their joke.

Both digimon turned to Davis and rolled their eyes.  "Is he always like this?" the new one asked Gatomon.  Gatomon nodded knowledgeably, and both laughed again.

"Who are you?" Cody asked softly, and Liam walked over to the new digimon.  All of his anger and frustration and fear from the day had melted away and was replaced with quiet wonder as he looked into her blue-gray eyes.

"Ask him," the new digimon answered, gesturing to Liam and smiling.  "He knows who I am."

"Nyamon?" Liam asked, and was greeted with a smile and a nod.  "It's really you!  You're real!" he exclaimed, and embraced her.

"I told you we would meet, so why are you so surprised?" Nyamon asked, with a slight bit of curiosity, but mostly enjoyment.

In her face and her voice, Liam could see the digimon from his dreams.  _"We'll meet again soon…you just have to believe…"_

Tears streamed down Liam's cheek as he held Nyamon to his chest.  "That was in my dreams, though!  I'd always _hoped we'd meet, but could never really believe until now."_

Gatomon turned towards the two new Digidestined, her eyes sparkling with amusement, "So, is this supposed to make me feel less special?"

Her answer was swift as the small clearing filled with good-natured laughter.  And for the first time that day, Liam felt whole.

***

PeaceKeeper:  So people don't flame me, let me clarify.  Azulongmon cloned Gatomon, but somehow the spirit in Liam's dreams got mixed in and that threw off the cloning process to create Nyamon.  Not Nyaromon, Nyamon.  Nyar is the Japanese equivalent of "Meow" so both digimon share the origin of their names, but I do not mean for one to be construed as the other.  Clear enough?  Read on…


End file.
